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The cold blade of the knife sliced through his skin, leaving blossoms of the purest crimson behind it. Ryou would worry if he found out, but since his friend was long-gone for school, he had no way of getting these feelings under control. If only he hadn’t been in the situation that had recently devastated him, there would have never been this dangerous desire… the desire to break out of the shades of gray that had enveloped his life… the shades of gray that had made it impossible to feel anything…

The only way to feel was to hurt, and thus far, this was his only option. Ryou had tried his best to comfort him, and it had been close to three weeks after the incident that he had realised his options – and therefore his existence – were running out.

Staring at the hundreds upon hundreds of slashes across his arms and wrists, he watched in morbid fascination as the cuts bled until they scabbed, and then he cut them open again…

That was how Ryou had found him, two hours later, staring at his arm and wondering about the events that had led to this.

—–.hack//G.U.—–

-Flashback-

“I can’t stand it anymore! All he does is sit in front of that blasted computer all day long – not a single ‘hello’ or ‘goodbye’! You know I’m right, Mariko, you know I am!” Kaoru didn’t hear the shouts from downstairs; he was too absorbed in ‘The World’. He was too fully integrated into the system to feel the furious stomps as his father came up the stairs, and he was in the middle of talking to ‘Haseo’ when his father burst into the room.

“Did you have anything in mind?” Kaoru asked, having just been asked to adventure with Haseo. They were in a relatively private venue – Netslum Tartarga wasn’t usually occupied by many players. Kaoru had been gently smiling when his father had ripped the headset off, although he obviously didn’t know that it was continuing to broadcast audio.

“Father!” ‘Endrance’s’ voice was full of fear; even though he had never met the player behind Endrance, the fear was obviously there. A loud, sharp noise came through the reciever, and a frantic scream of pain followed it, which was followed by another, and another, and another…

“Your mother and I work all day to support you, and all you can manage is a whimper of protest? Isn’t it obvious? You’re not wanted here, hikikomori. Your kind isn’t allowed here any longer.” A hard, metallic click came through the mic, and then a bang, followed by another sharp scream. Then a woman’s voice:

“Kaoru, get away!”

And then the noise on that side of the line fell quiet.

“Endrance? Endrance!” Kaoru fuzzily heard Haseo’s scream and moved over towards the M2D after his father was out of the room.

“Ha-Haseo… I’m here,” he mumbled.

“Are you alright?” The blonde 20-year-old didn’t bother putting the M2D on; it would just make his father angrier. That didn’t stop him from quietly speaking into it.

“I… I will be.” Groaning in pain as he shifted from his position on the floor, he confirmed what he had thought. “I’ve got a broken rib… dammit…” If he had been looking into ‘The World’ right then, he would have seen Haseo practically jump. Endrance never cursed. Ever.

“Give me your address,” Haseo’s voice demanded. When he got it, he continued his demands. “Get some clothes together. I’ll be over in a few minutes, alright? Will you be okay until then?”

“I think so,” he replied quietly, coughing as he rolled onto his back. “I can still walk.”

“Good. I’ll be over there as fast as I can.” With that, the sound of someone logging off met his ears as he anxiously listened to ‘The World’. Unplugging his computer and M2D, he haphazardly gathered random articles of clothing and stuffed them into an old bookbag, hobbling down the stairs, unaware that he was leaving a trail of blood behind him as he shuffled along.

“Kaoru?” His mother’s voice called him to the kitchen, where she gasped at his current condition. Her son was covered in blood, and was grabbing his ribcage – it was obvious that her husband had gone too far this time. “Where are you going?”

“A friend’s,” he told her curtly, his frail body racked with harsh coughing after he finished. “I won’t be back.”

“Kaoru…” His mother was searching for the right words, he could tell, but at this point, he didn’t care. The world was fading in and out for him, and he was seriously worried that he might die; he wasn’t worried for himself, but more for what Haseo would say when he arrived.

“Mariko? Where’s Kaoru? I wasn’t done with him yet!” His father’s angry voice drifted down the hallways, and his mother hurredly pressed a wad of bills into his hand.

“Go,” she whispered, shutting the door behind him. “He’s gone,” she called back.

“Little piece of shit,” the man muttered before turning around and walking back to go to bed.

—–.hack//G.U.—–

After that, Kaoru had wandered around the area for about ten minutes before some people had found him.

“Hey there,” one had called. “Wanna come with us? We’ll treat you good,” he had offered in broken Japanese. Kaoru shuddered and backed away, falling over in his uneasiness. “Oh, that’s no fun. Mio, get him over here. We’ll show him some fun.” The largest one had advanced on him, and he found himself literally backed into a corner. ‘Mio’ grabbed him and dragged him over, showing no regard for his injuries. “Aren’t you pretty,” the man cooed, tracing his finger along Kaoru’s face.

“Leave… Leave me alone,” he cried out as the man ripped his shirt off, running his tongue along Kaoru’s thin frame. Only seconds later, he had been completely divested of all his clothing and was shoved roughly onto the ground.

“I wonder how loud you’ll scream,” the man pondered as ‘Mio’ held Kaoru down. He had been about to force himself on the hapless boy when a new voice rang out through the narrow alley.

“If you’re going to pick on someone, I’m right here,” the cocky voice had announced.

“Mio! Get him too! We’re gonna have fun tonight!” Mio had let go of Kaoru long enough to rush the new arrival…

…and he had ended up on the ground, unconscious in a single hit.

“Who’s next?” The flashy smile had offered some degree of safety for Kaoru, and he had cut and run towards the shadowed figure. Falling onto the ground before he reached his ‘saviour’, the blonde had winced, completely sure that he was just going to be caught and taken back again, where unspeakable things would happen before he was murdered… A few screams and thumps later, he looked around and saw the newcomer standing above him, a few bodies surrounding their current location. “Be careful,” he warned before looking back. “Here.” The brunette held his jacket out for Kaoru to wear after he had pulled the remnants of his clothes back on. “You’ll get cold,” he had said with a frown, obviously a bit shaken by what he had seen. “By the way, can you tell me where this is?”

The voice finally clicked in Kaoru’s head as the stranger held an address out for him to read.

“Haseo?” The quiet, cold voice had pierced Ryou’s heart when he realised that the stranger he had rescued was none other than Endrance.

“You’re… Kaoru, right?”

Kaoru collapsed onto Haseo’s player a few minutes later, and woke up a day-and-a-half later in an unfamiliar bed. He had found ‘Haseo’, who he quickly learned was really named Ryou, sleeping on a chair at his bedside.

—–.hack//G.U.—–

“You really need to eat,” Ryou protested, shoving the picked-at plate of food back at Kaoru, who glared at it and poked at it with his fork.

“I’m not hungry,” he sighed, pushing his chair back and standing up before falling back into the chair when a bout of coughing wracked his frail form.

“But you’re not healthy, either,” Ryou argued. The he thought for just a minute about ways to convince the older boy. “I’ll let you play ‘The World’ if you eat.”

He had almost laughed when the hikikomori had begun to eat his food in earnest; only two minutes later, the plate was clean.

“Can I go play ‘The World’ now?” Ryou knew he was probably doing the wrong thing by allowing Kaoru to keep his addiction up, but right now, he had no other way to keep him in one place.

“Just be off by the time I get home from school, okay?” He sighed and wondered how hard it would be to drag Kaoru away from the M2D, but left it for the time being. The blonde needed all the help he could get, and if playing ‘The World’ would comfort him, then Ryou wasn’t going to stop him